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<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8702346" data-attributes="member: 87792">So what you're saying is that half-elves better fit the tropes that people now want to play than elves do.From this school of thought comes the idea that we should kick almost 100% of elves whose story is not about being really old out. Because that's about the only thing they do better than humans.Syndrome was talking out of his hat when he said that &quot;When everyone is super then no one is&quot;. But when every background NPC is explicitly deliberately interesting and, worse yet, interesting because of their race you are spending a ridiculous amount of time forcing people to look at your worldbuilding rather than getting on with things as you describe each new race.And when you make an NPC a halfling you are in general providing one piece of information that you are not providing when you make them human. You are essentially telling the players that this is almost certainly not a retired adventurer who took an arrow to the knee. They may be interesting in other ways (and probably are). And because halfling conveys information that human doesn't it's in some ways actively superior to human as a choice so human doesn't fill the role just as well.Is the notion of metaphor alien to you? Halflings are overlooked because they are small and because other than in exceptionally rare cases they do not try not to be overlooked. Partly because it is a defence mechanism. Halflings are so easily overlooked that mechanically lightfoot halflings can hide behind normal sized people despite them being only one size category larger.It is a metaphor made manifest. And a metaphor that works. It does not need a deeper reason.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 8702346, member: 87792"] So what you're saying is that half-elves better fit the tropes that people now want to play than elves do. From this school of thought comes the idea that we should kick almost 100% of elves whose story is not about being really old out. Because that's about the only thing they do better than humans. Syndrome was talking out of his hat when he said that "When everyone is super then no one is". But when every background NPC is explicitly deliberately interesting and, worse yet, interesting because of their race you are spending a ridiculous amount of time forcing people to look at your worldbuilding rather than getting on with things as you describe each new race. And when you make an NPC a halfling you are in general providing one piece of information that you are not providing when you make them human. You are essentially telling the players that this is almost certainly [I]not[/I] a retired adventurer who took an arrow to the knee. They may be interesting in other ways (and probably are). And because halfling conveys information that human doesn't it's in some ways actively superior to human as a choice so human [I]doesn't[/I] fill the role just as well. [B]Is the notion of metaphor alien to you? Halflings are overlooked because they are small and because other than in exceptionally rare cases they do not try not to be overlooked. Partly because it is a defence mechanism. Halflings are so easily overlooked that mechanically lightfoot halflings can hide behind normal sized people despite them being only one size category larger. [U]It is a metaphor made manifest. And a metaphor that works. It does not need a deeper reason.[/U][/B] [/QUOTE]

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